Buzz11

Review by Sarah Weinman “The most genuine happiness cannot be so pure, so deep, or so blind,” announces Ella Beene near the beginning of Sere Prince Halverson’s emotionally rich debut novel. For Ella, thirty-five and “not a physical beauty – not ugly, but nothing near what I’d look like if I’d had a say in […]

Review by Gwenda Bond The most surprising thing about Erin Morgenstern’s dazzling and rightfully anticipated debut novel, The Night Circus, is that it didn’t exist before now. Set at the turn of a nineteenth century recognizable but for the presence of magic, two shadowy rival magicians choose two contestants who will play out the latest […]

Review by Jacob Silverman The campus novel, so synonymous with satire, seems a perfect fit with our age of severe ironic detachment. It’s more difficult, even risky, for the novelist to approach the college setting from a more earnest vantage point, as a place brimming with unlimited potential – along with its corollary, suffocating failure. […]

Review by Ellen Wernecke After their 13-year-old daughter Felice ran away from home, Brian and Avis Muir threw themselves into their jobs – his as a high-powered real estate lawyer, hers as an award-winning pastry chef. Five years later, they hardly say her name: Avis seeks advice from her next-door neighbor, a Haitian woman with […]